I Heard The Bells

Christmas Mixtape. That is our series for Advent this year. What we're doing is looking at the stories behind familiar Christmas songs as a path into some less familiar Christmas scripture. And as you probably guessed today, the song we're looking at is "I Heard the Bells." And this song is really about, you could say, one of the biggest tensions of Christmas.

Because the Christmas season, to be fair, is full of tensions, right? I mean, you've got the travel tension, you've got gift-giving tension, there's financial tensions, there's relational tensions probably, but nothing compares to really this huge tension, which is this: the angel saying, "Peace on earth, good will to men." But if you're looking at the headlines, you're thinking, "Oh, that doesn't really seem like that's happening right now." If this verse is true, if the Bible is true, if Jesus was born to bring peace on earth, where is it? That's gotta be the biggest tension of the Christmas season, and that's the tension at the heart of today's story behind the song.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his day one of the most famous men in America, famous poet. In the year 1860, things were looking great for him. He was at the absolute peak of his success. His friend, Abraham Lincoln, elected president. But things soon turned dark, division, violence erupting everywhere. 1861, the Civil War begins and cannons boom across the South, the nation torn apart.

That same year, his wife, Francis, is at home with the family. They're in the living room. She's sealing envelopes with hot wax. And one of the candles catches her clothes on fire. And Henry tries to smother the flames, but she dies of her injuries. Henry is burned so badly himself, he's still in the hospital on the day of her funeral. From that day on, he wore a beard to cover the scars from his facial injury. But the real scars are much deeper than that.

He had a habit of writing a poem in his diary for Christmas every single year. And the whole nation looked forward to seeing those poems published. But for Christmas Day 1861, he simply writes the sentence, "How inexpressibly sad are the holidays." Christmas Day, 1862. A whole year later, he's still deeply depressed and he writes in his diary for that year, "A merry Christmas, say the children, but that is no more for me."

1863, Civil War intensifies. And Longfellow's oldest son, Charlie, runs away from home to join the Union Army. He is severely wounded in his first big battle, and in fact, Longfellow is mistakenly told that Charlie is dead. But he barely survives, returns home very injured in December. Christmas Day 1863. When you look at photographs of Longfellow over the 1860s, it is remarkable how rapidly he ages. And that's a sign of the stress he was undergoing.

And there's no diary entry for this year. Instead, he tries to rally himself and write a poem that captures his true emotions on that day. And this is what he writes.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day, their old, familiar carols play, and wild and sweet, the words repeat of peace on earth and goodwill toward men. And I thought how as the day had come, the belfries of all Christendom had rolled along the unbroken song of peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

And then I want to show you a couple of verses we didn't sing. They're not usually sung today, but they anchor this song in its original Civil War context. He wrote, "Then from each black accursed mouth," he's talking about the black maws of the cannons, "the cannon thundered in the south. And with that sound, the carols drowned of peace on earth, goodwill to men. It was as if an earthquake rent the heartstones of a continent and made forlorn the households born of peace on earth, goodwill toward men."

In other words, even Christian families were forlorn. "And in despair, I bowed my head. There is no peace on earth, I said, for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill toward men. Then rang the bells more loud and deep. God is not dead, nor does he sleep. The wrong shall fail. The right prevail with peace on earth. Goodwill toward men."

Today, what I want to do is really lean into the emotion that Longfellow was clearly feeling over that year and the three years previous to that. Why? Because I suspect a lot of people are feeling that, a lot of people in this room are kind of feeling that at some level in our country and also just with some personal things you might be going through. A lack of peace and division.

The Economist had an article, "The Dis-United States of America." They say it's no longer just Republican versus Democrat or liberal versus conservative. Depending on what you read, it's now the 1% versus the 99%, rural versus urban, white versus black, climate skeptics versus climate believers, business versus environment, country music versus actual music. I just added that one myself. I'm just kidding. That wasn't in The Economist. But their point was it's a world of us versus them. It kind of feels like a civil war psychologically.

Researchers at Northwestern University were studying this and they said, it's no longer that people only associate with their own side. That's kind of normal. It's that they're contemptuous of the other side. People on the other side are not just wrong, they're evil, and not just people on the other side. People on our side who are not sufficiently pure are apostates. And I'm seeing that happen more and more, kind of like that Civil War tension that was the context for the song.

So welcome to church today, aren't you glad you came? Well, the good news is this: God cares. Let's look at how God brings peace to an us versus them world. Whether you're feeling the division of the country, or in your family, or in your relationships, the message of Christmas is what gave Longfellow, ultimately, the faith to go on.

So open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 2, verses 11 through 22, or your Bible apps. This is not a usual passage to talk about at Christmas, but it's really about the purpose of Christmas, a purpose that we often forget.

Now, with some background, Ephesians was actually a letter that was written by one of the leaders of the early Christians, the apostle Paul. And Paul is facing a very big problem in the early Christian movement. And the problem is this: the world of the first century was also filled with division, at least as bad as ours. You had Romans versus all others, men versus women, citizens versus non-citizens, Greeks versus barbarians. The Greeks had a saying, "All men are divided into two classes, the Greeks and barbarians." You had slave versus free, rich versus poor, and then, of course, Jew versus Gentile, Gentile meaning non-Jews.

And all of these groups found the perfect place to clash in the ancient city of Ephesus, which was the largest city in the eastern half of the Roman Empire. And it had all of those groups in huge numbers. There was constant tension. There were always riots that the Roman government had to come in and put down.

But something happens there that changes history. In the Bible in the 19th chapter of the Book of Acts, it says the apostle Paul walks into town probably on this road which went from the harbor right into the main city of Ephesus. And he does what he usually does when he comes into a new city. He heads straight for the Jewish synagogue where he starts teaching. And as often happened, he gets kicked out of the local synagogue.

And after he gets the boot, he starts looking around town for a place to preach, and in a history-making move, he does not go to another Jewish synagogue. And he does not go to the Greek temples in town. He does not go to a private home. He does not go outside to the riverbank. He does do all those things at one point or another in the book of Acts, but this time he innovates. He rents a lecture hall. It was called the Lecture Hall of Tyrannus. And for the next two years plus, he preaches there.

Genius. Because it's not a pagan temple or a Jewish synagogue or a private Gentile home or a private Jewish home, anyone from any of those backgrounds is welcomed there. It's neutral ground. And it works. It is packed for about two and a half years. And over those years, a lot of people from all of those groups represented in town become followers of Jesus Christ, they become part of the Ephesian church, and now they're all there in one church. And tensions are starting to rise.

And Paul has to convince all of these people to live in peace. And if he doesn't, the Christian movement is doomed almost before it starts. So how in the world is Paul going to do that? By explaining one of the purposes of Christmas. Watch this, verse 13. He's talked about the division. "But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our" what? "peace."

You'll notice the word peace is all throughout this text. It's all about peace, the peace on earth that the Christ child was born to bring. Now what do you mean he is our peace? How could a person be peace? Well watch the way he finishes this sentence. "Who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility."

Now to understand this you have to understand he's not just speaking of a metaphorical wall. This is a reference to the Jerusalem temple. In those days, the Holy of Holies was where the presence of God was thought to most manifestly be present, behind a veil, a thick curtain. And nobody could go there but the high priest and that only once a year. And then outside of that, there was a zone where only priests were allowed. And then there was an area where only Jewish men were allowed, and then there's a place where only Jewish women were allowed, and then way over here, way far off, you have the court of the Gentiles, but it was separated from the inner sanctuary by a wall.

And on the wall, there were placards, warning signs in Latin and Greek, and archaeologists have actually found a couple of these, which I've been privileged to see, and when translated, they say, "Foreigners must not enter inside the balustrade or into the forecourt around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his ensuing death." That's intense. It's like, come to the welcome lunch after services unless you're in this category, then we'll have to kill you.

But Paul says, Jesus tore that wall down. How? Well, the Gospels tell us that when Jesus died on the cross, in that moment, the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom, from God to us. And the presence of God overflowed out of the holy of holies and passed all the barriers to the whole world through the Holy Spirit. In other words, we don't have to tear down the barrier. It's past tense. He has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. We just need to live in this new reality, to be ambassadors of this reality.

But let's go back a minute. How exactly did Jesus do this? Paul gives us some more details. "By setting aside in his body the law with its commands and regulations." What commands and regulations? He's talking about the law of Moses, which had a lot of rules, and some of those rules separated the Jew from Gentile. Now, they weren't originally intended to do that. They were intended to create a distinct culture of holiness, but they ended up having the effect of creating complete separation.

For example, kosher dietary rules. The Jews couldn't eat certain foods, could only eat certain kosher foods, could not eat other foods: pork and shellfish, eels, et cetera. And the Romans loved those exact forbidden foods, eels and shellfish and pork, et cetera. In fact, they gorged on them. And in Jesus' day, people in his Jewish culture were so offended by this, they just never, ever, ever, ever hung out with non-Jews because they were afraid of being ritually impure.

What these commands and regulations Paul's talking about did was effectively create a wall between Jew and Gentile. They didn't know each other. They didn't hang out with each other. They were suspicious of each other. And so what Paul is saying is that in Christ, there are no longer these lines. Nothing wrong with keeping kosher and so on. You can do that if you want to, as Paul talks about in Romans chapter 14. If that's part of the culture you were raised in, that's beautiful. But the kingdom of God is not about how you are made righteous in God's sight by what you eat, as he also says in Romans, "It's not a matter of eating and drinking. It's a matter of what Jesus did for us by his grace on the cross."

And here's where it really gets rolling in Ephesians 2. Paul starts trapezing from one metaphor to another. He's so overjoyed about how Jesus Christ brought peace. He says, "So now there's one body," verse 16. His purpose, what's the purpose of Christmas? Why did Jesus come at Christmas? "His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace. And in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility."

Because on the cross, Jesus took the penalty for all our sin, anyone from any background. And now there's one spirit. Verses 17 and 18: "He, Jesus, came and he preached peace to those of you who were far away and peace to those who were near, for through him, we both have access to the Father by one spirit." I'm the same as everybody else. I'm not better than anybody else. We both have access to God by the same spirit.

And we have just one country. Verse 19: "Consequently, you," it's talking to that church mixed with all those groups, "are no longer foreigners and aliens, but are fellow citizens with God's people." Whether somebody's Jew or Gentile, or American or Mexican or El Salvadoran or Nicaraguan, or Ukrainian or Russian or Palestinian or Israeli or German or Chinese or even Swiss. If they're in Christ, the walls are down and we're fellow citizens with each other. This is pretty radical, isn't it?

And we live in one family. Paul says, "And we are members of God's household," that means one extended family. That means no matter where anyone is from, if they're a child of God, they are your brother or sister. Amen?

So look at this list. The angel sang peace on earth. This is how radically God brings peace. We kind of reduce or devalue the gospel when we make it just about, he came to bring you peace of mind and peace of heart. That's certainly part of it. But man, it's a much more radical vision than that. Through Christ, this is who we are.

Now, is this real? So check this out. Last weekend, I thought it would be fun just to walk around with my iPhone and ask people to wave for something I was making for the loop as people come in on the screen. I started at TLC en Español at 11. I went over and got coffee at Loft. I walked back to cross the parking lot, came into this church service. And I didn't intend to do this, but it was striking to me when I looked at everybody. I met people from Mexico, China, India, South Africa, Israel, Ukraine, Costa Rica, Argentina, the UK, and those are just the people I knew. All within the space of about 20 minutes last weekend, and we were all in here, all worshiped together as one. We got a long way to go as a church, but that is something to be cherished, amen?

And this idea is all through the New Testament. Here's the radical vision for peace on earth. Galatians 3:28: "There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Look at Romans 10:12: "For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all, and richly blesses all who call on him." Or look at Colossians 3:11: "Here, there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, uncivilized, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all." Or back to Ephesians chapter 4: "There is one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, over all, through all and in all." Amen? That is radical. But that's the kind of peace on earth Jesus Christ was born to bring.

But if you're Longfellow in 1863 during the Civil War, you're wondering, I mean, this is beautiful undeniably, but is it real? How does it work? Well, here's how it works according to the Bible. It starts vertical when you personally receive peace with God and you simply receive it by faith. And this is how grace contributes to this because if it's all by grace, you cannot put yourself above anybody else. You cannot say, "Well, you know, I got in because of my ethnicity or because I'm a better performer or I'm a higher spiritual achiever." No, it's all by grace. So you can't think of yourself as better than anybody else. So you say, "Lord, I believe this, I receive what you did for me on the cross by grace through faith." And your sins are forgiven. It's got to start vertical. Otherwise you'll think you're better than other people, right?

Then, can't stay there, it goes horizontal to those around you. Like later here in Ephesians, Paul writes, so, since this is what Jesus has done for you, "Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit, binding yourselves together with peace." Every effort.

Now, let's think about that for just a minute. Because today it's so easy thanks to social media to stay in your social tribe. 24/7. That's not making every effort. Today, it's so easy to never even be with anybody who isn't exactly like-minded. That's not making every effort. Today, it's so easy not to even try to understand people who might be different. That is not making every effort.

Can I just get real personal here? I am so disturbed these days by how easily even Christians will divide from other Christians. I mean this equation you're seeing it all over the place. If you believe X and I believe Y, well then you're not a true Christian. And it seems like no matter what the issue is, I see Christians refusing to even fellowship with other Orthodox, biblical, born-again believers over really secondary issues. And not only that, getting sarcastic and demeaning and sneering toward them. It's unbelievable.

But it's easy to point fingers. So let me challenge you with a question that I've been challenging myself with for the last couple of weeks. Say somebody says something that I really disagree with. What is my instinct? Will my words to others, and that includes social media posts, actions toward others, thoughts about others, be more or less likely to contribute to the peace on earth that Jesus came to bring? Will my words to others, actions toward others, thoughts about others be more or less likely to contribute to the peace on earth that Jesus came to bring at Christmas? I gotta tell you something, this really challenges me.

Because I may not say it out loud to anybody except for my poor wife, who can sometimes hear my rants about this. But when I see people who claim to be Christians and some of the things they do, I sure think things like, what a buffoon, what a fool. Instead of thinking, that person is my brother or sister in Christ, and I'm gonna make every effort to live at peace with them, to try to understand, to try to reach out to them and love.

One time in the past, I heard that a couple of pastors here in town had said things about me. They were not very nice. Things like, Twin Lakes is only growing because Renee teaches the people their baby food. One said, he's a lightweight, he only preaches what people want to hear, and it went on in this vein. And those two pastors were Mark Spurlock and Valerie Webb. No, I'm just kidding about that. No, they were from a couple of other churches.

So I drilled down and their main complaint was that I was not preaching politics from the pulpit. That was their main definition of how to be deep from the pulpit, which as you know, I don't do. And so I got mad. I thought all kinds of bad things about them. It's kind of grumbling. Now usually criticism rolls off my back. This one really got under my skin.

And then I'm going into a place in town to eat lunch and I saw them sitting together with a couple of other people from their churches. And I walked in and I immediately thought, look at those weasels. They say I'm unrighteous. They're the ones that are unrighteous, gossiping, slander. That's a sin. They're the ones that are compromising, preaching politics, watering down the gospel. And I wanted to just look at them in disdain, you know. I wanted to like give them that look where I'm gonna throw darts with my eyes.

But I'm not very good at that. And suddenly it occurred to me that is not making every effort. Then I noticed they had a seat open at their table. And I walked over and I said, "Hey, is this free? Can I join you?" And the whole hour I never brought up the conflict, but at the end of the lunch we prayed together. And I gotta tell you, I'm so glad I did not give in to my first impulse.

Now as far as I know, they still don't like me, but maybe they feel guilty about it now, so mission accomplished. Seriously, I don't think I changed their minds, but listen, what happened there was, at least the foundation was laid for potential constructive conversations later, where maybe we can come to an understanding. I mean, honestly, we always have to be open to maybe there's something, they observe some root of truth in every criticism. Maybe I have something to say to them. But if you want peace, you need to go horizontal and be a peacemaker, even if it doesn't pay off right away.

You know, peace in relationships can take a long time to grow, and we need to plant seeds of peace now that you hope maybe you'll get to harvest much, much later. And horizontal doesn't just mean to other Christians. We are ambassadors of God's reconciliation to the whole world. 2 Corinthians 5 says God reconciled us to himself in Christ, vertical, right? And gave us the ministry of reconciliation, horizontal. Of course, peace on earth will not happen perfectly till Christ returns, of course not. But this is our mission. Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. It's our mission from Jesus.

And essentially, you know what this means. You say you want peace on earth. Where's the peace on earth? Cross the street and love your neighbor.

We started with the Civil War being fought in the deep south, so let me wrap up with another trip to the south 100 years later. Racial tensions are high in 1971, the city of Durham, North Carolina. Two diametrically opposed people sit on the same school committee: Ann Atwater, who was a black civil rights activist, and Claiborne P. Ellis, everybody called him CP. He was the Ku Klux Klan grand exalted cyclops. And yes, that's a real title. That means he was the leader of the local clan.

So CP actually brought a machine gun to their first meeting and announced he was there to, quote, disrupt everything that everybody's trying to do. And for her part, Ann later said that she hated him. She said she'd never been around many white people, so she said she caricatured them all as, in her words, Neanderthals. She actually brought a knife to one of their meetings also and threatened CP with her knife at the meeting. So contentious, I mean this is pretty contentious committee meetings.

Then one day a black gospel choir came in to sing a hymn to the committee as some sort of a community thing, and CP clapped on the wrong beat, on one and three instead of two and four. And Ann says she reached over, grabbed CP's hands, and as she put it, "learned him how to clap right." And somehow that human touch triggered something. The two of them met privately, they actually cried together, buried the hatchet. Ellis soon left the Klan, and teamed up with his new friend Ann Atwater to try and help solve the city's poverty problems and racism problems, and so on.

And then they talked and they figured since it was a gospel choir that brought us together, let's start attending church together. And that is where they stayed friends for over 30 years, finding their unity in Christ. And when she was asked, how in the world did you befriend a guy like that? She was very clear: having the Lord in my life taught me how to be able to love. Vertical, horizontal.

And here they are after decades of close friendship. I love this picture so much. It's one of the final pictures of them together. CP said they became the best of friends. Well, in 2005 CP died. At his funeral, Ann was asked to deliver the eulogy. And when she spoke, she ended with this great line: "You know, I gave him a title much cooler than Grand Exalted Cyclops. I call him brother."

I mean, come on. What a perfect illustration of peace on earth, of what Paul's talking about here in Ephesians. One heart at a time, vertical and horizontal. Jesus truly does bring, say it with me out loud: Peace on earth, goodwill to men.

Let's pray together, would you bow your head with me? Heavenly Father, it's so easy to see the walls between people everywhere we look. And we want to confess and repent today. We confess today that we often build these walls higher with our own thoughts at least, if not our words, our attitudes, and we want to repent of that today. And we ask that you would replace hostility with hospitality. Help us to live as examples of your grace in the world. May our lives embody the reconciling power of the cross. And we cry out for your perfect peace to reign, not only in our hearts, but in our neighborhoods, through us. And God, I want to pray that if there's anybody here who is thinking about that vertical aspect and has yet to simply receive in faith your peace into their hearts, my prayer is that they would open their hearts to you right now during communion and say, "Lord, I receive your peace into my life through what Jesus accomplished on the cross." In the mighty name of Jesus, our peace, we pray. Amen.